Overview

Sourcing professionals often understand that e-sourcing can bring many advantages such as ease of engaging with suppliers and real-time reverse auctions. But they may not know how easy it can be to get started. Previous generation sourcing tools were complicated and difficult to run, requiring specialized skills. Many service providers make their business in providing sourcing expertise and the toolset for sourcing complex commodities.

Getting started with sourcing can actually be very quick and easy with certain categories. Coupa’s Sourcing QuickStart Program can help you get started.

Get Started Quickly with E-Sourcing

Coupa’s Sourcing QuickStart program gets you started immediately with everything you need. With the program, you get a 30-day free trial of the Coupa Sourcing product as well as support from Coupa’s experienced sourcing professionals to help you run a single sourcing event. Recent events included:

Savings of over $2.9M (22%) on computers and IT equipment for a healthcare company

Savings of over $600K (27%) on background checks for a transportation company

Get a Jump on E-Sourcing With Limited Investment

QuickStart events require surprisingly little in the way of software implementation. One customer actually saved more than $2M with a QuickStart event prior to implementing Coupa's Procure-to-Pay solution. Requirements from your team to participate in the program are modest, given its potential benefit:

Dedicated time from a team member (2 to 8 hours per week)

Participation in Coupa marketing activities

The QuickStart Process

With QuickStart, you run a single Sourcing event and award business within 30 days. It’s that quick to get started with e-sourcing.

Identifying the Sourcing Category

The first step for the company is a high level spend analysis to identify the potential categories. The company also identifies its current suppliers in the particular spend category for this Sourcing event.

Setting Up and Launching the Sourcing Event

Coupa prepares the software for use and creates the RFX questions and line items. It uploads attachments for the bidders and runs a test event. Then the production event is launched.

Managing the Sourcing Event

Once the event is launched, both parties focus on interacting with bidders. The company answers questions about the products being sourced, while Coupa answers questions about how the Sourcing system functions.

Analyzing the Results of the Sourcing Event

After the event closes, the company grades the bidders’ responses, analyzes the results, and makes the award. Experience with the Sourcing Quickstart process in multiple companies shows that it’s realistic to accomplish this in the fourth week of the process.

Good Commodity Candidates for a Sourcing Event

Typically, companies already have the data they need to pinpoint good candidates for their Sourcing events. Following are some criteria for this choice:

The candidate is a well-defined commodity on which the company’s annual spend exceeds 200K.

The commodity has not been sourced for at least 1 year.

The company has at least 3 approved suppliers of this commodity.

Data show that there is a healthy buyer’s market for this category. Good typical low-hanging fruit includes office supplies, IT hardware, and cleaning services.